Outwardly a stretched copy of the Smart car it has a well engineered electric drive train. I remembered a guy who used to race a Hillman imp at the weekends. The Hillman Imp had a rear engine attached to a sub-frame and the sub-frame was attached to the car with 3 large bolts. This guy had a spare race prepared engine on its subframe. At the weekend he would undo the 3 bolts drop his road going engine, whack in the race engine do up the three bolts and go racing.

The problem with electric cars is the limited range. Dave pointed out you need a conventional car for long range trips at the weekend. What if you had 2 modular engine/drivetrains an electric one and a conventional one for longer trips? The subframe would have the suspension, wheels engine/drivetrain and fuel storage and would slot in the rear of the car on rails being locked in with some easily removed fixing. Having it at the rear does away with the need to deal with steering interfaces.

The problem with hybrids is the weight and complexity. This would get around that. If you did not need the longer range there would be no need to buy the conventional option. There is a simpler solution which is to have charged batteries at fuel stations which can be swapped. But this needs infrastructure and standard batteries.

Another option is the extended range concept, where a small conventional engine powers a generator. This is an almost essential option for the BMW I3. Annoyingly, California legislation stupidly limits the range on this facility. Review of the I3:

Talking of concepts I remembered the Avcen Jetpod. A short take off air taxi. Its idea seems to have died with the inventor, Michael Dacre who was killed on its first test flight. I found a recent update here:

They were gong to use this in a James Bond movie according to a recent documentary on the cars used for the movies. The aircraft part is from a Skymaster. A Skymaster was used as the chase plane which was controlling an unoccupied 727. The 727 was deliberately crashed for a Channel 4 documentary.

There have been over 100 attempts to make a flying car or roadable aircraft. A recent one the Aeromobil is most developed and version 3 has just had its maiden flight.

Worthy of a mention is the Samson Switchblade, here is how the wings work:

Chatting to a friend recently and back in the mid-fifties he cycled out to Blackbushe airfield. The US Navy were using it as a base and had the unique carrier based nuclear bomber the North American AJ Savage. Don’t tell Obama now he is more hawkish than Dubya! No security fences, no guardhouse they just cycled around the perimeter track until they came on the plane. A couple of bored mechanics were happy to show them the interior of the plane. A couple of things struck me, the plane had a jet engine in the back of the fuselage but where was the intake? Possibly the ogival hatch shown in this picture. Also the jet used the same fuel as the piston engines. I reckon it took some brave guys to fly that on to carriers! More here:

The Mosquito was such an excellent concept that Focke-Wulf of 190 fame imitated it as the TA154. Excellent piece in this newsletter about the development of the Mosquito, it was dubbed Freemans folly as it design was so radical. Another of his follies was to give Roy Chadwick the go-ahead to try fitting 4 Merlins on the failed “Manchester” aircraft :

The wing spar is in modern parlance, a glulam beam as seen on Canary Wharf’s new station roof. The wing skin was a sandwich of plywood and balsa. A similar technique was used on the Leak sandwich speakers, the outer layer being aluminium foil and the inner being polystyrene foam.

The Mossie was arguably the first composite plane, some corporate background to the latest, Boeings 787

I wonder if the strain from one engine flight has caused the other engine problems, more likely the engine had the same QC problems as the last link. Impressive work by GE to identify and fix said problems

Some airlines are flying the 787 at an altitude of 43000 ft which is a fair bit higher than the usual commercial height of 35000 ft. Apparently for economy and more direct routing. Some American airlines require the pilot to wear an oxygen mask at the high altitude, as it becomes commonplace, will they relax that rule?

Talking DH anyone noticed the resemblance between the DH Albatross and the Constellation?

DH tried to sell the Albatross to Howard Hughes (for TWA) who then went to Lockheed for his next plane. However the Albatross was built of wood and may have given Hughes the idea for the Spruce goose. DH and Lockheed cooperated on the development of the P80 Shooting star. the prototypes having a DH Goblin jet engine.

Albatross at the opening of Luton Airport in 1938 Note the dihedral on the tail. Nice article on the Albatross:

Not a lot of people know that the likes of Cessna, Beechcraft and Piper produced an average total of 14000 planes a year in the boom years between 1965 and 1980. Interesting article on the economics of flying now: